The mall: It's what's outside that counts

The student: Alyson Cruz, 20, of Rosamond, studied "lifestyle centers," malls that try to bring back some of charm and life of traditional city and town centers.

The project: Westfield University Towne Centre, conceived in the 1970s as the college town center for UCSD and lately redesigned to make it place to visit, shop and stay for fun.

Her observations: She praised the plaza as a place to linger, what with its comfortable seating, fire place and central location. But what's missing are direct connections around the mall.

"Detrimental to pedestrian access are the lack of visibility of the space from outside UTC and poor walkability through parking lots and across streets. Although UTC attempts to aid pedestrian access through pedestrian bridges from major destinations across high-traffic streets, these bridges are uninviting. The bridge crossing Genesee Avenue begins and ends in the middle of parking lots."

Solutions: Concentrate surface parking spaces into more parking garages and replacing the asphalt lots with mixed-use develoment. She also advocates more and better publicized public events that would entice students to stay longer.

"Palm Plaza is a successful public space and has the potential to become a significant community space for the La Jolla and University City area."

Getting from here to there shouldn't be so tough

The student: Mike Shenkman, 34, of Huntington Beach, returned to college after seven years in the real estate business when the market crashed. Having grown up in Southern California, he knew this was a car culture, but he wondered what it would be like to be an hourly restaurant worker with no car.

The project: "The Long Ride Home for Low-Income Residents," took him on a expedition from Chula Vista to Fashion Valley to see how a restaurant server would get to work at the Cheesecake Factory. The San Diego Trolley's trip planner indicated departure at 9:25 a.m. from the Bayfront/E Street Station and arrival at 10:30 a.m. His actual experience meant a 34-minute delay.

"There were many instances where I found myself either waiting for a train to arrive at the station or sitting in the train waiting for it it depart," he reported. "After my arrival, I found myself running to my destination to make it on time for the shift. I found myself completely exhausted from the trip and would have found it very difficult to work a 5-6 hour server shift in a restaurant."

Some planning is wrong headed, he found.

"This (bus rapid transit) line is set to run through the annexed, higher-income, eastern part of the city (of Chula Vista," he said, "even though the majority of transit users in the city are located in the poorer, western part."

The solution: Transportation planners need to figure out how to measure the real duration of travel and act accordingly.

More plans equals more neighborhood improvements

The student: Elena Chang, 21, of Cupertino, wondered why some communities get city funding for neighborhood projects and others don't.

The project: The more community planning groups there are in a San Diego City Council district, the more money they get.

"There is a growing body of literature that points to increasing regional disparities in economic activity and infrastructure," she said, "especially in the fast-growing economies of developing countries." And the same thing applies at the local level.

Her observations: Chang tested her theory against actual capital improvement spending in low-income District 1 in the north and high-income District 8 in the south. She found that District 1's La Jolla got $3,487 per capita in infrastructure spending in fiscal year 2012 and District 8's Barrio Logan got $97. La Jolla has three planning groups, while Barrio Logan has none.

The planning groups are only advisory but their members serve as unpaid lobbyists at City Hall and, if effective politically, can win dough for their pet projects. Simply put, if you're not at the table, you don't get served.

"Despite the many challenges inherent in the existing process of securing infrastructure investments," Chang said, "local public participation remains an important issue for communities that have a continuously growing list of needs with ever-changing priorities."

Solutions: With the city dependent on local residents to call out what's most needed, she said a community needs to harness its "stakeholders" to come up with "creative solutions."